Windows 8 Consumer Preview Feedback Thread

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Shawn

Lifer
Apr 20, 2003
32,236
53
91
Ok, I installed Win8 Comsumer Preview on my home laptop. I have been trying to give it a chance, I really have, but so far I just absolutely hate it on my laptop. I think it would be really cool on a tablet no doubt. Anything with a touch screen would work. But on a laptop with a touchpad it is absolutely crap. To do anything productive I am in the desktop anyway and when I use the metro apps I just find them to be a pain. The hotspots or whatever they are called don't work well and are difficult to use with a trackpad. Don't think I'll keep this much longer before reinstalling 7.
 

Termie

Diamond Member
Aug 17, 2005
7,949
48
91
www.techbuyersguru.com
Ok, I installed Win8 Comsumer Preview on my home laptop. I have been trying to give it a chance, I really have, but so far I just absolutely hate it on my laptop. I think it would be really cool on a tablet no doubt. Anything with a touch screen would work. But on a laptop with a touchpad it is absolutely crap. To do anything productive I am in the desktop anyway and when I use the metro apps I just find them to be a pain. The hotspots or whatever they are called don't work well and are difficult to use with a trackpad. Don't think I'll keep this much longer before reinstalling 7.

Actually, that's an interesting point. I found it harder to use my touchpad than to plug a mouse into my laptop. Ironic, given that W8 is designed for "touch".
 

Pia

Golden Member
Feb 28, 2008
1,563
0
0
Apparently Apple didn't get that memo.
Apparently you didn't understand what I wrote.
Or are you telling me Apple has magic that allows them to spend their entire R&D budget on one device, then re-spend it on another device?
 

BD2003

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
16,815
1
81
Apparently you didn't understand what I wrote.
Or are you telling me Apple has magic that allows them to spend their entire R&D budget on one device, then re-spend it on another device?

Apparently they're willing to dedicate the resources to develop two OSes with separate UIs at once. This isn't magic, it's factual.
 

arod

Diamond Member
Sep 26, 2000
4,236
0
76
An example: One of my favorite apps in all the world is reeder (a google reader client). I have it for iPhone, iPad and lion. Even though they share some design language and serve the same purpose, each is custom designed for its platform, and the end result is far superior than if they had tried to force a single design to all shape and sizes of device. That's the level of thoughtfulness I'm coming to expect, and Win 8 is a step in the other direction. Theoretically one UI saves resources, but that's a form of corner cutting, and I'm not getting behind that.

And that is EXACTLY the reason I want windows 8 everywhere.... sure you have a few apps like that but a vast majority of apps will never get that same treatment on ios. With windows 8 every app will get that same level of functionality on every device because its one app.

To me that one point supersedes ANY flaws in the UI and this will be more apparent in the years/decades to come as more apps get rewritten in WinRT (and equally as important is the 3 state thing in WinRT).
 
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Dominato3r

Diamond Member
Aug 15, 2008
5,109
1
0
Ok, I installed Win8 Comsumer Preview on my home laptop. I have been trying to give it a chance, I really have, but so far I just absolutely hate it on my laptop. I think it would be really cool on a tablet no doubt. Anything with a touch screen would work. But on a laptop with a touchpad it is absolutely crap. To do anything productive I am in the desktop anyway and when I use the metro apps I just find them to be a pain. The hotspots or whatever they are called don't work well and are difficult to use with a trackpad. Don't think I'll keep this much longer before reinstalling 7.

Yea some of the hot spots are weird, but I've been using alt+tab and win key +tab for switching applications for a while so I've haven't really given them a lot of time.
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
Also, some cold, hard facts. Of the 7 billion people on the planet, only 1.2 billion of them have a computer. That's 17%. The next billion computer users will not have a keyboard and mouse.
As a minor aside, if that's the future I weep for humanity. The lack of a keyboard is the death of writing, at which point the computer will simply be the next idiot box.
Not continually. The UI of OS X 10.0 was worse, not better, than the UI of the last OS 9 version. There is wide agreement of that; it was laggy and a great many features were missing that people were accustomed to. Just like Metro, it was accused of prioritizing "eye candy" over functionality. If there was someone at Apple who, like you, insisted the new version must always be "better" with no exceptions, the 10.0 UI could not have been released.
I'm really not sure Mac OS X is a good argument here. 10.0 had major teething issues, but other than labels (which as it turns out no one uses anyhow), there were no major UI issues. It was immediately clear that Mac OS X was a better UI, which is why it has changed so very, very little in a decade.
 
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bdunosk

Senior member
Sep 26, 2000
573
2
81
As a minor aside, if that's the future I weep for humanity. The lack of a keyboard is the death of writing, at which point the computer will simply be the next idiot box.

Huzzah.

I can't fathom how I would deal with Metro to write a scientific paper. Unless the OS reads my mind, it's going to focus on or resize the wrong thing over and over again. Sometimes I need an inactive window bigger than the active one. Sometimes I need three windows visible even though I have twice that many open, and 30 seconds from now I'll only want to see two of them. Yes, I can go back to 8's desktop, but as it stands getting there is not very efficient. Yet. (I hope)
 

Pia

Golden Member
Feb 28, 2008
1,563
0
0
Apparently they're willing to dedicate the resources to develop two OSes with separate UIs at once. This isn't magic, it's factual.
For Microsoft it would be cheaper and easier to design a bunch of distinct platforms instead of trying to make one adapt reasonably to a range of hardware, but their own costs isn't what they are thinking about. It's the app developers'. That is the perspective from where my comment came from. If you are making an app, want to distribute it on X platforms and you have Y budget, you do not have Y to spend on each platform. The more of your effort you can have going towards all of those platforms simultaneously, the better your results are likely to be.

Comparisons to Apple should take into account that Apple has shackled themselves to very specific hardware in order to micromanage their UIs. With their software strategy, Apple can make neither a 7" tablet nor any kind of PC with a touchscreen.

Since you want Microsoft to make a bunch of distinct UIs, how many? Should there be one for 7" tablets, another for 10" tablets (and what happens if you attach mouse and keyboard to the tablet?), one for laptop PCs with touchscreens, one for desktops with large touchscreens, one for KB+M only laptops and desktops...?
 

Muyoso

Senior member
Dec 6, 2005
310
0
0
And that is EXACTLY the reason I want windows 8 everywhere.... sure you have a few apps like that but a vast majority of apps will never get that same treatment on ios. With windows 8 every app will get that same level of functionality on every device because its one app.

To me that one point supersedes ANY flaws in the UI and this will be more apparent in the years/decades to come as more apps get rewritten in WinRT (and equally as important is the 3 state thing in WinRT).

That is insane. Why would you want one program designed for smartphones, tablets and desktops? When that happens you get a shitty tablet app, a shitty smartphone app and a shitty desktop app. MetroUI is completely designed for touch, which makes it annoying to use with a mouse. The same will be true of any program that tries to use a single design for smartphones, tablets and desktops. With MetroUI right now, you get programs with disgusting HUGE buttons (IE) because they were obviously meant to have a meaty finger touch them instead of a small mouse pointer.
 

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
So Windows 8 lasted all of 5 minutes on my computer. I *hate* the new interface. I don't like the way the boot loader works, either.

If they come out with a way to use Windows 8 as a regular computer I might be interested seeing as it apparently boots faster and has other improvements. Windows 7 is a very nice system though and will be tough for MS to beat.
 

dagamer34

Platinum Member
Aug 15, 2005
2,591
0
71
That is insane. Why would you want one program designed for smartphones, tablets and desktops? When that happens you get a shitty tablet app, a shitty smartphone app and a shitty desktop app. MetroUI is completely designed for touch, which makes it annoying to use with a mouse. The same will be true of any program that tries to use a single design for smartphones, tablets and desktops. With MetroUI right now, you get programs with disgusting HUGE buttons (IE) because they were obviously meant to have a meaty finger touch them instead of a small mouse pointer.

Similar comments were made about the GUI vs command line interfaces. Guess who won.
 
Oct 19, 2000
17,860
4
81
Used the W8CP a little today, and I'm mixed. It's a LOT better than the developer preview, and after using it for a bit, I can actually see some use for it on a desktop. It looks freaking awesome as a tablet OS though. I'm going to put some more time into it in the following week at work.

I do worry about Microsoft trying to bring this into the consumer market. As a tablet OS, I think it'll be fine. But put this on a regular desktop and people will freak out. Hell, those of you in this thread who know how to use a computer are freaking out and getting angry. Of course, some of you hate change.

It will be interesting seeing this thing released later this year. At the moment, I'm looking forward to it.
 

Muyoso

Senior member
Dec 6, 2005
310
0
0
Similar comments were made about the GUI vs command line interfaces. Guess who won.

arod was responding to BD2003, who said that he used an app that had multiple versions specifically tailored for each device, a desktop, tablet and phone. arod said he wanted one app that worked on all devices and that is what windows 8 would offer. I responded that one app on all devices makes for a crappy app on all of the devices.

How in the hell does the GUI vs command line debate play into that at all? There was a single device in question, the desktop. GUI wasn't optimized for tablets and being ported to the desktop. They weren't taking a phones GUI and porting it to the tablet and desktop. Your example makes no sense to me.
 

cboath

Senior member
Nov 19, 2007
368
0
76
I thought he was talking the evolution of the UI.

People complained of loss of control and not being able to do what they wanted to going from:

DOS to Windows 3.x
3.x to 95
and a time or two in the evolution to Windows 7.

It's a fact.

I can remember people pitching major fits that software written for the 386 wouldn't work on 286's and lower.

People should at least recognize this is a beta and that the final verison could very well look and function much differently.

The stuff people are complaining about are the things you should be sending in via the feedback tool.
 

tornadog

Golden Member
Aug 6, 2003
1,222
0
76
Apple can make a new ui and it is intuitive to even a two year old. Microsoft makes a new ui and even seasoned pros have to spend an hour to understand where everything is. Microsoft's strength is familiarity and this metro ui is definitely not it. Its perfect for tablets and phones. Also the synergy among different devices is something to be excited about. If they give me an option to disable metro and stick to the traditional desktop I will give it a try.
 

BD2003

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
16,815
1
81
I thought he was talking the evolution of the UI.

People complained of loss of control and not being able to do what they wanted to going from:

DOS to Windows 3.x
3.x to 95
and a time or two in the evolution to Windows 7.

It's a fact.

I can remember people pitching major fits that software written for the 386 wouldn't work on 286's and lower.

People should at least recognize this is a beta and that the final verison could very well look and function much differently.

The stuff people are complaining about are the things you should be sending in via the feedback tool.

Command line to GUI was a dramatic increase in functionality. People might have not been able to do things the old way but there was so much new power and flexibility hardly anyone looked back.

Desktop to metro is a dramatic decrease in functionality.

It's a terrible comparison to use to make your point.
 
Oct 19, 2000
17,860
4
81
Apple can make a new ui and it is intuitive to even a two year old. Microsoft makes a new ui and even seasoned pros have to spend an hour to understand where everything is.

I don't think that's it at all. Apple developed iOS on a touch-based device and it was pretty damn bare-bones. You touch an icon and the app opens....that's really the only thing you could do with their OS. There was no multitasking so people didn't have to worry about switching apps, there were no accessory support to fiddle with, no devices to set up, no applications to install, nothing. They've added stuff over the past 4+ years and people picked it up piece by piece.

Microsoft is coming in with a new OS that's obviously geared towards touch-based devices, but everybody is using a keyboard and mouse and are getting confused. Give them a tablet with W8CP and I think it'd be a completely different story. People have been using iOS for over 4 years now, give them more than a day to figure out W8.
 

M0RPH

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2003
3,302
1
0
Apple can make a new ui and it is intuitive to even a two year old. Microsoft makes a new ui and even seasoned pros have to spend an hour to understand where everything is. Microsoft's strength is familiarity and this metro ui is definitely not it. Its perfect for tablets and phones. Also the synergy among different devices is something to be excited about. If they give me an option to disable metro and stick to the traditional desktop I will give it a try.

But the thing is, if you disable Metro what you're left with is Windows 7.1
 

cboath

Senior member
Nov 19, 2007
368
0
76
Command line to GUI was a dramatic increase in functionality. People might have not been able to do things the old way but there was so much new power and flexibility hardly anyone looked back.

Desktop to metro is a dramatic decrease in functionality.

It's a terrible comparison to use to make your point.

I don't think so, but to each his own.

Still, that's not the point - the point being people complained about change without giving it a fair shot. And when they complained about those changes it was in FINAL versions, not beta's. A lot of the functionality people want may make it into the final version.

I'd also like to know whether microsoft sees a future where everything is an 'app' instead of a full program. Do they see Visual Studio running as one of these apps? AutoCAD? Office? Photoshop?

Someone above said there's a real need to have multiple windows open when doing something, and that's extremely true. I tried messing around in 8 last night and I could only tile 2 things which wasn't that big a deal to me. What WAS a big deal was that I couldn't determine the ratio of what size each pane was. I as limited to something like 85%/15%. Any time i tried to drag IE to more than 15% it went full screen and if it was 85 and I tried to drag it to less, it went to 15%. That may work on a tablet or phone, but not a PC. Imagine if you ad a 30" screen. There's no reason to limit people to that type of scope. Hopefully that'll be something to be fixed in the final. It's not hard to write a basic if/then statement and giving full control over sizing if you're on a PC instead of a phone/tablet.

The difference between that and some of the complaints I read is - that's bringing up an issue I don't like and hope to be fixed. I'm not trashing the whole thing over it. There ARE things I like. I actually kind of like the dashboard approach. I WOULD like a clock on it (now THAT's big oversight! ). Still, though, i like the approach. Could it be better? Sure. That's what this whole thing is about - trying a beta and giving them feedback so they (hopefully) make the necessary changes down the road.

Someone please tell me there's a way to get the dang clock into the start screen. Only getting it when using a hot corner isn't acceptable. I'd venture a significant number of computer users in this world rely on the clock in the bottom right hand corner of the screen to know what the actual time is.

I can only imagine how many reports MS receives that start out along the lines of 'WTF are you thinking??' - i imagine those get trashed immediately.

If you want something to change, you've gotta tell them.
 
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